The Executive Director for the West Africa Centre for Counter-Extremism (WACCE), Mutara Mumuni Muqthar, has urged government to declare the recent activities of vigilante groups like the Delta Force, Bolga Bull Dogs and Invisible Forces as a “national crisis”.
About 200 members of the Delta Force, a vigilante group linked with the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) Friday March 24, 2017 invaded the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council, to stop the Ashanti Regional Security Coordinator, George Adjei from performing his duties because they “could not work with him since he was from another region.”
The Ashanti Regional Police Command has arrested the leader of the vigilante group who allegedly hounded Mr. Adjei out of his office. The 37-year-old mechanic, Kwadwo Bamba, is currently in police custody helping with investigations into the attack, a police statement said.
The statement also noted that names of other members of the vigilante group are known to the Police and are being pursued.
Commenting on the development Monday on the Morning Starr, Mr. Muqthari said the continuous reports of vicious vigilantism is worrying and that it is “high time we look at it in terms of a crisis.”
“This is not the first time….this is not the second time and we are beginning to see the emergence of new groups and because of our past posture, our past attitude towards solving this problem hasn’t been deterrent enough. It has emboldened the resolves of other individuals and groups to emerge with new names and group such as Delta Force,” he told Francis Abban, Morning Starr host.
He warned that “if we do not have that sense of national emergency regarding this issue we are going to have the emergence of groups like that and probably much more disastrous than we are seeing right now.”
He said he was impressed with the seriousness the Interior Minister, Ambrose Derry has shown in fighting the menace but “we need to see real action and so it is in the right order to consider [vigilantism] as a crisis.]”
